If this blog is still going in the 2030s I will, regrettably, have run out of interesting places in London to tell you about. So today I thought I'd sneak in a dull 2030s post several years early, in the hope of stretching out the interesting stuff a fraction longer.
I told you recently about County Gate, a cul-de-sac of executive semis in East Barnet stretching down from the Great North Road on Pricklers Hill. It marks, as you'll remember, what was once the boundary between Middlesex and Hertfordshire.
But London has another County Gate, very much on the other side of town, and that's where I've been this time.
This time we're on the borderline between Greenwich and Bexley, or as it was before 1965 the County of London and Kent. The boundary sweeps across suburbia between New Eltham and Sidcup following a path set long before the houses arrived, and here we find it crossing the Foots Cray Road.
The dividing line is marked today by two borough signs, that for the Royal Borough of Greenwich the most ostentatious and that for Bexley an apologetic rectangle on a lamppost. They're some distance apart because the boundary once cut across the road diagonally, but now follows the edge of Mervyn Avenue. But if you look beside the wall outside number 501, there embedded in the pavement is the top of an old boundary marker stone. Suburbia sometimes buries history.
On the opposite side of the road, on the verge outside number 494, is one of London's extant milestones. Facing the roadway is an iron plaque saying '10 miles to London Bridge' and to one side '2 miles to Footscray', although the 2 miles plaque is only visible to traffic heading towards London Bridge. Scratched into the back in Roman lettering, and heavily weathered, is the original inscription 'MILES X LONDON'. It's likely no coincidence that the milestone precisely served travellers passing between Kent and London.
In the 18th century this was the main road between London and Maidstone, as laid down by the New Cross Turnpike Trust. But there never was a gate at County Gate, or at least if there was I can find no evidence. The road called County Gate is just a brief residential avenue added between the wars to link to the new dual carriageway Sidcup Road, so has become a bit of a rat run for cars hopping onto the A20 (eastbound only).
The whole of County Gate, including its back gardens, is in the London borough of Bexley. Street signs on the western side confirm this. I always find it unnerving that Bexley's coat of arms appears to be a defecating dog.
The three dozen houses along County Gate are chunky white semis with half-timbered gables and red-tiled bays. As London goes they're rather nice, although built when this was Kent. Mervyn Avenue, the adjacent street in Greenwich borough, can't quite match it for desirability.
Some houses have smart clipped hedges, others low brick walls, while many have gone full-on crazy-paved. Parking is only permitted in a few marked bays so the majority of residents keep their multiple vehicles off-road. At the southern end of the road the yellow lines change to red, and the noise levels raise a notch too. Visible across the dual carriageway is Mr Mulligan's Dino Golf, although to reach its prehistoric-themed 18 holes requires quite some diversion.
County Gate also boasts that most special of accolades, a pair of busstops named after the street. These are to be found on Foots Cray Road, with matching shelters where those waiting for routes 233 and 321 can hide from the rain. If you want to pop down and experience all these cross-border shenanigans for yourself, this is the best place to alight.
Another historic relic of the boundary between London and Kent can be found a few miles away between Penge and Beckenham, this time with a station to its name. But I'd better save blogging about Kent House until a later date, otherwise I'll have nothing to write about in the 2040s.
